Thursday, July 5, 2018

The Salt of the Earth

Still doctoring. Seemingly no nearer getting rid of my ileostomy pouch, which I have dubbed Donald Trump, than I was two months ago. Now I am supposed to cut back on salt intake.  OK.  I quit putting salt on eggs, tomatoes and corn on the cob which is about all I ever salted anyhow and laid off the salted peanuts which I only eat when other people buy them. Ah, but you have to avoid processed foods.

What the heck are processed foods? The health food sites talk about them like "avoid arsenic and ground glass". Turns out if you didn't kill it, pick it or dig it yourself, it is processed food. And the sodium (salt) levels are printed on the packages.  I should read them.  No I shouldn't as they are scary.

Just for the halibut, I went through my cupboards and fridge and wrote down the sodium levels based on my serving size. Like who uses one tbsp (15 ml) of salad dressing? "Real" food, I didn't bother with: eggs, pork, beef, chicken, potatoes, onions, turnips, lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, etc.. Or rice, macaroni and spaghetti. High salt content in too many things.  With no effort at all I could (and do from time to time) hit 3 or 4 times the sodium RDA and never touch the salt shaker.


7 comments:

  1. Avoid deli meat too. Crazy high in salt. Other than your salt intake, glad to hear you're recovering well. You'll get rid of Donald Trump some day, just like the USA, gawd willing.

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  2. Glad to hear from you again. Know what you are going through is tough.
    take care
    the Ol'Buzzard

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  3. Wow, this has been a long haul for you. I hope you see progress soon.

    There's a lot of sodium in baking soda and baking powder, too. When my dad was on a sodium-restricted diet, I used low-sodium baking powder (potassium bicarbonate) so at least he could have home-baked goodies. Use it with cream of tartar or another acid source to provide more effective leavening. Maybe a sweet treat will make you feel better.

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  4. Frozen/microwave dinners usually have a lot of sodium, too.

    My father used to say the only two things he HAD to have salt in/on were eggs and oatmeal. It takes awhile for the taste buds to get used to, that's for sure.

    Hope you continue to heal and become a candidate for reversal in the not too distant future. My aunt recently had a ruptured diverticulum (or so I gathered) and was septic; she had to have a colostomy and they said maybe a reversal in a year. It can't come fast enough for her.

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  5. Sympathies.

    Health food sites are mostly nuts, sorry.

    In practice, "processed foods" means canned or frozen. Problem is, a great deal of salt is used in these preservation processes and it's over a healthy level, even for healthy people. Last time I looked (this was about a decade ago) a healthy intake is about 2,000 mg/day. If you eat a lot of processed foods, you're probably up around 6,000 mg/day.

    There's a whole "taste inflation" thing that goes on; one gets used to a high level of salt, and food at a healthier level tastes flat. Persist!

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  6. there are things that have over 800 mg's of sodium in them ..freaks me out..

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